1. Field of the Disclosure
The present disclosure relates to a conductive carbon nanotube tip, a probe having the conductive carbon nanotube tip, and a method of manufacturing the conductive carbon nanotube tip.
2. Description of the Related Art
Generally, a scanning probe microscope (SPM) is a device for measuring a variety of physical values of a test piece by scanning the test piece using a probe. The SPM is referred to as a third generation microscope that is useful for a surface analysis of a thin film.
The SPM includes a probe having a tip and a scanner for scanning a surface of the test piece using the tip, a control/process unit for controlling the scanner and processing a signal from the scanner. The SPM has been developed in a variety of configurations, such as a scanning tunneling microscope (STM) using a current generated by a voltage difference between the tip and the test piece, an atomic force microscope (AFM) using a variety of atomic forces generated between the tip and the test piece, a magnetic force microscope (MFM) using a magnetic force generated between the magnetic field of the test piece and the magnetized tip, an electrostatic force microscope (EFM) using an electrostatic force generated between the test piece and the tip, and a scanning capacitance microscope (SCM) measuring an electric capacity of the surface of the test piece.
In the EFM, SCM, and other conductive measuring units, a probe having a conductive tip is used. In this instance, there is a need to minimize a diameter of the conductive tip to enhance the resolution. In the prior art, a conductive tip formed of a silicon tip on which metal is coated has been used. However, due to the limitations in the material and the manufacturing process, it commonly is difficult to reduce the diameter of the tip to less than 100 nm. Therefore, it is difficult to analyze a grain size test piece or a nano-scale element.
From the late 1990s, the AFM has employed a carbon nanotube tip having a diameter of several to tens nanometer scale to enhance the resolution thereof. However, since the carbon nanotube used in the AFM has a relatively high electric resistance value, it cannot properly be used as a conductive tip for the EFM, MFM and SCM.